


That Dark Black Heart

by josephina_x



Category: Smallville
Genre: Bad Ending, Dark, Darkfic, Gen, the field - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 10:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5159633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark learns to let go, but makes the wrong choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Dark Black Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Title: That Dark Black Heart  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville  
> Pairing: Clark, Lex  
> Rating: R (just in case)  
> Spoilers: for the entire series (future-fic); pulls mainly from 4x01 (Crusade) and 10x22 (Finale: Part 2).  
> Word count: 1200+  
> Summary: Clark learns to let go, but makes the wrong choice.  
> Warnings: Un-beta'd. Darkfic.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> Comments: Yes, please! :)  
> Author's Note: This is the second idea I had after reading some of [bradygirl_12](http://bradygirl-12.livejournal.com)'s [darkfest prompts](http://dark-fest.livejournal.com/64663.html?thread=593815#t593815), in particular: "Smallville, Clark/Lex, in canon, Lex takes the dark path laced with madness. What if Clark goes down the dark path instead?" (and, coincidentally-enough, my first actually- _workable_ idea :) ...And no, I'm not really planning on submitting it to the 'fest, since (1) prompts are supposed to be claimed later, and I didn't feel like waiting, so there :-P and (2) I kinda violated the "instead" bit. --Hope you like it anyway! ;)
> 
> The tone of the piece was inspired greatly by the dreamlike quality of [me_ya_ri](http://me-ya-ri.livejournal.com)'s [After Life](http://me-ya-ri.livejournal.com/494677.html). Not sure if I pulled it off, exactly.
> 
> Originally posted to LJ on 2012-01-30 here: [link](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com/15632.html).

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Clark."

Clark whipped around, startled. "Lex?" he nearly sputtered, and his voice was almost lost in the usual roaring noise of the Daily Planet's bullpen.

Lex smiled slightly and stepped forward, sliding his hands out of his pants pockets, reaching up to frame Clark's cheeks as he simply said, "I know." He casually lifted the disguise away from Clark's face, folded the pair of glasses and laid them down on Clark's desk beside him as Clark stared in shock, never looking away from him.

"You-- you know?" Clark stammered quietly.

"I know your secret," Lex repeated just as quietly, stepping closer, eyelids dropping a little but his gaze never lost its intensity. He brought his left hand up to gently cup Clark's cheek, and Clark absently noted his right hand drifting behind his back, but lost that train of thought when Lex leaned forward, closed the distance and kissed him.

Clark's eyes widened in shock. He almost pulled away as he leaned back against his desk, but Lex moved with him, curling his left hand around the base of Clark's neck, holding him in place. Clark shivered at the sensation, and his eyes fluttered shut.

Inevitably, he shivered at the sudden, sharp and piercing pain in his chest.

Because of course it would hurt. When had loving Lex ever been any different?

But then his lips felt cold, and Clark realized Lex had pulled away.

He opened his eyes to a softly-smiling Lex, vaguely dizzy, the pain in his chest becoming a dull, draining ache.

He felt confused as Lex stepped back and he fell to his knees. He stared up at Lex and tried to speak, struggled to say something, ask what was wrong, why Lex's eyes had gotten so sharp, his smile so cutting, who he heard so faintly, screaming his name, what was happening to the lights, because they were dimming...

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark was standing in the Field again, facing the scarecrow cross.

In the light breeze he swayed slightly, along with the endless rows of corn just past the small dirt clearing.

"Jor-El?" he whispered. "Why am I here?" he asked, tilting his head up to the sky.

"You are dead, my son," came the booming, echoing reply.

Clark frowned. He'd heard stories, of course, but he'd never realized that anyone could actually die of a broken heart.

Maybe Kryptonians were different that way, too.

"I didn't mean to," Clark said, sorry. Because he really hadn't meant to. He would have been more careful if he'd known.

Lex was going to be so angry.

But, oddly, his chest still hurt. All of the other times he'd been here, he hadn't hurt.

Maybe Lex made it different.

...No, of course he did, he _always_ did.

"You have a choice to make, my son." Jor-El boomed. "I have prepared you as best I could. I cannot help you more than I have already."

Clark frowned up at the sky as he raised his right hand up to his chest slowly, pushing his palm against it. Why did it still hurt so much?

"You are ready, my son. Be strong."

Then Jor-El was silent. Gone.

There was nothing for him to push his palm against. Clark looked down at his chest, at the gaping hole in it. Something in there, deep inside him, really did hurt.

He slowly shoved his fingers inside and grasped the pain.

He pulled it out.

The pulsing pain withdrawn, Clark felt oddly detached from himself as he stared at it.

And slowly it came to him that he should know this. He should know what this was. He knew he should. It _was_ familiar somehow, in a nagging, almost abstract way, but...

Something was wrong.

He grimaced as a horrible chill began to spread through him, and so he quickly reached inside with his left hand and pulled out something else.

Oh. He recognized this.

In his left hand he held a large chunk of black meteor rock, and remembered what it was to be torn in half. To be Clark and Kal-El.

Clark had been weak.

Kal-El had been strong.

Clark had needed his mother's help to survive.

Clark's mother wasn't here.

Had _Lex_ torn him in half this time?

He stared at his hands and the hole in his chest. It seemed so.

He frowned and weighed what was held in his hands. Burning, throbbing, but somehow warm pain in his right hand. Frigid, biting cold, an unyielding crystalline hardness in his left.

Then he hissed as both sensations began to slowly travel up his arms. He held them out in front of him, as far away from himself as he could, but there was no denying what he felt and must feel, and he hissed again as the feel of cold dead crystal and warm pain met back in his chest again.

He blinked. Because the cold was so cold that it numbed the warmer pain.

Somewhat.

It was still there, though.

Then he shuddered as the warmth and cold began to mix further, swirl, fight inside him. The hole in his chest felt shredded, and he could feel it begin to widen. He couldn't survive this. Not like this.

He shuddered again, uncontrollably, and pulled his hands in towards his chest again, staring down at what he held. He would have to rid himself of something.

He had a choice to make.

Strong cold Kal-El? Weak and warm Clark?

Both were painful, each a different kind of pain.

...With what he had to give up, was it really that hard a decision to make?

He stared off into the distance and thought carefully as the divide inside him grew. Then he made a decision -- not the best one he could make, but perhaps the only one he was capable of making after all. He took a deep breath, opened his hands and...

~*~*~*~*~*~

He came awake all at once on a cold steel table under darkness.

He sat up abruptly. The darkness fell away as a shroud.

_Pain. painpainpain--!_

He shuddered and doubled over, collapsing onto his side and tightly wrapping his arms around himself, bent nearly in half. He hacked and coughed and spat until he vomited black blood and dark shards onto the white sheet.

Finally the wet hacks became dry heaves and abruptly stopped. He straightened spasmodically, tossed his head back and sucked down air in a rush, filling his chest and reveling in the fact that could finally breath again -- it was glorious! After a few breaths, he laboriously pushed himself upright again, his arms shaking slightly with the strain.

He sat on the edge of the coroner's table and felt no fear; in the solitude of the vacant room, the sight of light glinting silver off of edged instruments was almost pretty. He breathed out a sigh as he looked down at the pitch-black long-internalized mess he'd rid himself of, because he'd almost expected something like that to happen. He absently raised both his hands and ran them down his bare front.

He stopped midway down, startled, and raised his palms up again, laying them flat.

That was... unexpected.

He could feel a pulsing beat and thrum under the skin of his smooth, unmarked chest.

He blinked and pushed the heels of his palms in, harder. Spread out his fingers, farther. Warmth? He began to worry.

Then he realized that the pain was gone.

Slowly, carefully, he lowered his hands.

He began to smile.

~*~*~*~*~*~


End file.
